I came across the four methods of knowing that Kerlinger (1969) suggested nearly four decades ago. Kerlinger and Lee (2000) reiterated the four methods as follows:

1. The Method of Tenacity
People hold firmly to certain beliefs because they have always known them to be true and frequent repetition of the belief enhances its ostensible validity. They adhere to truths that are very dear and long-standing to them (i.e. one knows something to be true because one holds firmly to it, because one has always known it to be true).

2. The Method of Authority
People accept knowledge from an individual or group of individuals who have been, in some way, designated as authoritative producers of knowledge. The method of authority is not necessarily unsound, depending on how the authority acquired its knowledge. It can be unsound, however, if everyone merely accepts the word of authority without examining or questioning the qualifications of the source of its knowledge (i.e. people in power have said so).

3. The Method of Intuition
This method of knowing relies on the use of pure reason based on prior assumptions that are considered to be self-evident with little or no consideration given to the role of experience in the acquisition of knowledge (A priori). A serious limitation of intuition is that experience may show that a self-evident truth is not a valid assumption in a logical system and if an a priori assumption is incorrect, the conclusion will be incorrect (i.e. something is self-evident or logical, hence further explanation is unnecessary e.g. 2+2 = 4).

4. The Method of Science
The knowledge is independent of personal beliefs and depends instead on objective empirical verification. This method
makes it possible for knowledge to be renewed as soon as new evidence appears that contradicts what is assumed to be true at a given moment (i.e. One needs to be objective, free from biases or our past). Kerlinger and Lee (2000, p.14) defined scientific research to gain scientific knowledge as follows: "Scientific research is systematic, controlled, empirical, amoral, public, and critical investigation of natural phenomena. It is guided by theory and hypotheses about the presumed relations among such phenomena"

Reading these four methods of knowing, I wonder which one people often use in studying the the Bible, which is the revelation of God of his redemptive plan in Christ Jesus his son. It is important I think to examine the way we think over this issue, that is to learn the way we learn.

If we rely on the method of tenacity for example we can be led into a certain predisposition towards an issue in the Bible without knowing why we hold onto it in the first place. For example, I know a few brothers and sisters in Christ who believe that they cannot eat meat offered to their Chinese ancestors in the traditional ceremony their family have. As Christians, you don't touch that. Period. It's the kind of NIH (not invented here) syndrome.

Many Christians, myself included in the first few years following my conversion, learn basic Christian doctrines using the method of authority through membership/catechism class. We believe whatever is taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith and learn not to question it. While this is perhaps the route to go for new Christians, spiritual maturity necessitates a more elaborate understanding of the why and how the teachings are formulated as such in those church documents.

The method of intuition and science can be equally insufficient in our learning of the word of God. Our intuition can be flawed, and are flawed in our fallen nature. Our scientific mind cannot possibly grasp the wisdom of God apart from his grace. The cross, which is God's wisdom, will appear as something foolish to an unregenerate, scientific mind. "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor 2:14) .

We may need the method of authority, intuition, and science (perhaps to a much lesser extent, tenacity), but all of them are severely insufficient to understand God's wisdom.

The Apostle Paul teaches us that there is another method of knowing, the Method of the Holy Spirit, when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9-14. It's the Holy Spirit who illuminates, searches, and teaches us the things of God. It has been said the the Bible is the only book whose author is always present when it is read.

But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.